


Why Homestuck Is Good.

by orphan_account



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: (the lord being homestuck), Other, This is an essay for 4/13., i apologize for interrupting your gay fanfic search but have you heard the word of our lord, i needed to create something for The Best National Holiday, im gonna put this in some main tags so forgive me here.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23626540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A question as old as Hussie himself:“What is Homestuck about?”To which we’d all respond:“Well, it’s about a boy and his internet friends.”But God, do we all know that’s pretty lackluster, while still technically correct.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Jake English/Dirk Strider, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	Why Homestuck Is Good.

_ Dedicated to 4/13 _

Before we begin properly, let’s talk about my qualifications. I have:

  1. Been in the Homestuck fandom for (roughly) 5 years now
  2. I have read the entirety of the webcomic multiple times.
  3. I’m gay and trans; I named myself after Dirk Strider.



Now that we've handled that-

Today we are covering, in order of appearance:

  * Act 1, intro. Title: “What is the meaning of Life, Dirk?”
  * Act 2, discussion of Homestuck concerning its audience. Title: “Bro, you posted cringe; you lost a subscriber.”
  * Act 3, My own experience, and the difference between safe media and mature media; IE Homestucks' strengths. Title: “I named myself after Dirk Strider, so yeah, I have a pretty deep emotional tie to this webcomic.”
  * Intermission: A brief side tangent.(About fanbase perspective on characters.)
  * Act 4, Title: “Re: What is the meaning of Life, Dirk?”



  
  


Act 1, Intro: “What is the meaning of Life, Dirk?”

A question as old as Hussie himself:

“What is Homestuck about?”

To which we’d all respond:

“Well, it’s about a boy and his internet friends.”

But God, do we all know that’s pretty lackluster, while still technically correct.

What do you think of when you think of Homestuck? You couldn’t say that to strangers. It’s, rather famously, a fucking tough thing to explain. After you said that first thing to the theoretical stranger, you’d probably go, “Well shit, it’s kinda difficult to phrase."

Even still, I’m curious to know what you thought of when I asked the previous question. Did you think of John in his house early on in the comic? Did you think of Vriska’s complicated moral questions? Did you think of Kanaya and Rose kissing on the stairwell? Too bad you’re just reading this and not talking to me. Maybe message me later and tell me what you think of, for fun.

The point to me asking that question was the fact that we all thought of different things: One person thought of Dave and his Bro. One person thought of Terezi and the blind justice that she enforced. One person probably thought of that one flash where Karkat has a panic attack. 

We all love different things in this comic, which is okay because there are many things to love.

Well, I’m about to fucking school you on what I think Homestuck is. Are you ready?

Ha, trick question. We have to haul ass to do some chores first before we go out to play.

First, let's talk about Homestuck’s themes concerning its audience.

Act 2, “Bro, you posted cringe; you just lost a subscriber.”

From the beginning Homestuck has attracted an inherently LGBTQIA+ audience, and our community has been alive quite a long time (11 years as I post this, damn). We are a very fucking diverse bunch, no? 

All goddamn colors of the rainbow, neurodivergent and trauma survivors, old, young, and people of color. Even though the text of Homestuck isn’t the best (but not the worst) towards any of these groups, we have clung to it like a fucking adorable baby koala. Why is that?

Well, Homestuck’s emotional themes (the cycle of systematic abuse and familial abuse and mental health)  _ might _ have something to do with the strange phenomenon. Because we're so diverse, we all have solidarity against one thing: systematic abuse and oppression, as well as familial abuse (something many of us have experienced due to the nature of being LGBTQIA+.)

The early days of the Homestuck fanbase, after it became popular, reflect that of teenagers and young adults. We finally found a piece of media that got us; we gay, neurodivergent people (the Homestuck fanbase has always had a large amount of neurodivergent people in it.)

That is often why a lot of our content from the early 2010s is so shameless. Primarily, we were a bunch of gay and neurodiverse people who finally found something that got us.

And why wouldn’t we be that shameless? 

Homestuck is something to celebrate. From it’s LGBTQIA+ representation and it’s neurodivergent characters, to how it tells stories that are inherently queer without even breaking a sweat. 

I stand by that Homestuck in all aspects is something to be celebrated, and we were celebrating it back then.

Okay, serious stuff aside, back to jokes.

I am speaking directly to you now, reader: what fucking happened?

Why do we now say we hate Homestuck? Why? Why are we so fucking hateful now compared to then?

The answer to that is sad, and one we all know. 

Cringe culture.

Cringe culture is a tool of ableism and, in this case, homophobia, to the same gay neurodivergent people for their interests.

Why do you think Undertale was hit with a good dose of cringe culture as well?

And to be fair, it hasn’t stopped. If it stopped, I think the negativity about Homestuck would’ve (to some degree) stopped as well.

Problematic culture is, in some cases, a tool to pick apart “problematic” media queer people enjoy and have enjoyed for years for the sake of being “woke” while not acknowledging the context under which the media was created. 

(The internet circa 2009, whilst simultaneously getting better over the course of the comic.)

Mainly when Homestuck handles so many topics (abuse, mental health, being queer) with genuine nuance, it's hard to believe the people who critize it so harshly have any interest in being constructive, let alone helping the fanbase and media alike improve. 

Homestuck is problematic, yes, but one webcomic that isn’t the worst thing 2009 turned out just because there were certain things it handled like shit. Especially considering it then handled a fuckton of things masterfully (like being LGBTQIA+ and the abuse kids often face).

It tells me that you don’t want people who have experienced these things to have safe pieces of media to explore these concepts without it being your definition of perfect, or, maybe, you just don’t like it because: 

“Bro, you posted cringe. You just lost a subscriber.”

Act 3, “I named myself after Dirk Strider, so yeah, I have a pretty deep emotional tie to this webcomic.”

My relationship with Homestuck is a lot like everyone else’s.

Homestuck turned me queer through a series of videos containing people dressed as Dave and Karkat kissing. Now I’m gay and transgender. It's the usual story, really.

In all seriousness, though:

Years ago, I was your usual neurodivergent kid everyone hated and made fun of. The token "weird kid.” 

I didn’t have friends growing up.

But when I got into Homestuck, it allowed me to explore my identity in a way that developed with me as a person. 

At no point in my life has Homestuck not been relevant or unable to teach me something. Personally, one of the reasons I love Homestuck (the webcomic) is because I have trauma, and it’s hard to find a space in which trauma and hurtful things can be explored with nuance in a way that wouldn’t trigger a serious breakdown.

Homestuck is that space for me. 

Homestuck is that space for many people.

This is the difference between Homestuck and other “mature” media.

Mostly, if we’re talking about actual mental health when talking about harmful subjects, if someone who has experienced that exact thing can’t read what you wrote: it is not nuanced, and it  _ is _ thoughtless.

It’s ableist to assume that trauma survivors who find certain media upsetting deserve to have that facet of their identity (the trauma and mental health repercussions of that trauma) bastardized, simply because they "care too much" as if there aren’t ways to explore those topics respectfully. As if trigger warnings aren't warnings, but bars of entry for those who need them.

This is one of Homestucks' unyielding strengths. The ability to give trauma survivors a safe place where they can explore that part of themselves with nuance and understanding that does not extend to many other pieces of media.

Now that I’ve hopefully got you on board with that concept: this is what I call immature media vs. mature media. Something can be mature media and not even be for adults. (ex. Steven Universe.)

Something can be immature and for adults. (ex. Family Guy, but note: something does not need to be homophobic or transphobic to be immature.)

That I believe is why Homestuck has stood the test of time overall. Because of it’s love and understanding for people who’ve gone through horrible things. The lessons said in Homestuck about it’s heavier topics are beautiful, and illustrated perfectly. (Especially characters like Dave, Dirk, Vriska and Terezi.)

Intermission: A brief side tangent. 

Let’s talk for a second about another one of Homestucks' unyielding strengths: it’s characters.

I don't need to tell you how complex and finely-tuned each character in Homestuck is. So I won’t.

But I am saying that how you perceive characters with heavy neurodivergent coding, like many characters in Homestuck, should be examined in the lense of them being neurodivergent. Because unfortunately, a lot of ableist misconceptions can be found within the Homestuck community. 

Of course, I don’t need to tell you that, reader. I’m assuming you’re neurodivergent. I'm sure your meat is huge, but more critical thought around perceptions of heavily neurodivergent characters in a big community like this wouldn’t hurt  _ anyone _ , right? Just a thought.

Act 4, “Re: What’s the meaning of life, Dirk?”

I talked briefly about Homestuck evolving with you like a story, and how it hasn’t ever been irrelevant in my life. For me, the meaning of Homestuck has changed multiple times for whatever I needed it to be at the time. 

There is simply too much content in Homestuck for it to have one subject. It’s about nothing. It’s about everything.

I titled this question, “What’s the meaning of life, Dirk?” for a reason. 

Homestuck is about as diverse as it’s community. The answer to the question,

“What is the meaning of life?”

“Anyone’s answer to that question is correct because none are contradictory.”

**Author's Note:**

> hey thanks for reading an essay on ao3. its stupid but i needed a public forum to post this, so.  
> also, thanks to all my friends, especially Rose for help here.


End file.
